Mathematical Physics

This talk explains the theory of "factorisation" or "vertex algebra" analogues of the theory of quantum groups, (2312.07274).

We will first recap the theory of quantum groups and their connections to wider mathematics, due to Drinfeld, Etingof, Kazhdan, Jimbo, Reshetikhin, Turaev, and many others. We will then explain how to give a natural definition of "factorisation" version of these objects, give the basic structure theory about their categories of representations, and derive an explicit model for them. This relates to previous work of Etingof-Kazhdan and Frenkel-Reshetikhin.

We will sketch some physics heuristics for the above theory; briefly, our structures should appear on the category of line operators in 4d theories due to Costello, Witten and Yamazaki, e.g. on the representations Rep U_q(g^) of affine quantum groups.

We will then give some examples. The last part discusses the conjectures that naturally suggest themselves, for instance by analogy to the connections referred to above.

Prerequisites on chiral and vertex algebras will be given at a talk earlier in the week. (1-2pm Tuesday, Bob Room)

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Brane Webs in Type IIB String Theory can be used to engineer 5d N=1 gauge theories and SCFTs. These brane webs can also be used to obtain so called magnetic quivers, whose 3d Coulomb branches gives the Higgs branch of the 5d theory in question. We will see how to obtain these magnetic quivers for brane webs possibly in the presence of orientifold planes. Then we will see how 3d Coulomb branch technology (such as quiver subtraction) can be used to understand Higgsings and mass deformations of 5d SCFTs.

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The Hitchin systems are a remarkable family of integrable models associated to the moduli space of principal bundles on a compact Riemann surface. In this talk, I explain how the loop group uniformization of this moduli space can be used to construct an r-matrix for the Hitchin systems. This r-matrix has been previously used in the description of the Friedan-Schenker connection on the space of conformal blocks.

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